The Liberal Republican Party of the United States was an American political party, organized in May 1872 to oppose the reelection of President Ulysses S. Grant and his Radical Republican supporters in the presidential election of 1872; the party emerged in Missouri under the leadership of Senator Carl Schurz and soon attracted other opponents of Grant. The party sought civil service reform, it disappeared after the 1872 election. The Republican Party had emerged as the dominant party in the aftermath of the Civil War, but many original Republicans became dissatisfied with the leadership of President Grant. Prominent liberal leaders like Schurz, Charles Sumner and Lyman Trumbull had been leaders in the fight against slavery and for the first stages of Reconstruction, they considered the job thought continued radical policies as oppressive. By 1872 they demanded an end to a restoration of self-government to the South. Liberal Republicans decried the scandals of the Grant administration and sought civil service reform.

The 1872 Liberal Republican convention nominated a ticket consisting of Horace Greeley, longtime publisher of the New-York Tribune. Seeking to defeat Grant, the Democratic Party nominated the Liberal Republican ticket and endorsed the Liberal Republican platform. However, Grant emerged triumphant in the election. Democrats lacked enthusiasm for Greeley. Greeley received 44% of the popular vote, winning the states of Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee and Maryland. Grant received 286 of the 352 electoral college votes. Greeley died shortly after the election; the Liberal Republican Party vanished after the election, though a handful of its leaders continued to serve in Congress. Former Liberal party members scattered into the Republican parties. By cutting the allegiance of liberal elements to the Republican Party, the Liberal Republicans made it possible for many of these leaders to move to the Democratic Party. Liberal republicans advocated for a return to traditional classical republicanism, were concerned about corruption and centralized power creeping into the Federal government and they wanted to reform the Republican party.

As the liberal republicans began to form a political party, a few years it was taken over by others who were anti-Grant and anti-reconstruction. The party spread nationwide, it had strong support from powerful Republican newspaper editors such as Murat Halstead of the Cincinnati Commercial, Horace White of the Chicago Tribune, Henry Watterson of the Louisville Courier-Journal, Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican and Whitelaw Reid and Horace Greeley of the New-York Tribune. Many Liberal Republican leaders had been Democrats and members of the Free Soil Party before joining the Republican Party after its creation in the 1850s; the Liberal Republicans thought that the Grant administration and the President were corrupt. More important they thought; these goals were first the destruction of slavery and second the destruction of Confederate nationalism. With these goals achieved the tenets of republicanism demanded that federal military troops be removed from the South, where they were propping up corrupt Republican regimes.

Many of the original founders of the Republican party and leaders of the Civil War joined the movement, including its nominee Horace Greeley, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, Cassius Marcellus Clay of Kentucky and Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts. The party platform demanded "the immediate and absolute removal of all disabilities imposed on account of the rebellion" and local self-government for the southern states, it regarded "a thorough reform of the civil service as one of the most pressing necessities of the hour". Many Liberal Republicans sought a downward revision of the tariff, believing that powerful industries had unfairly won the protection of certain goods; the Liberal Republicans believed in civil and political rights for African Americans and argued that goal had been achieved. Hence, now they said it was time for "amnesty", which meant restoring the right to vote and hold office to ex Confederates. A key motivation for many Liberal Republicans was a belief in states' rights and a fear of a strong federal government.

Many Liberal Republicans had joined the Republican Party in the 1850s in opposition to the expansion of slavery into the territories, but with slavery no longer an issue and the Civil War over other issues such as federal power re-emerged. Many of the Liberal Republicans, including Trumbull, had opposed the impeachment of Andrew Johnson and were wary of an upset of the traditional constitutional balance of power. Led by Schurz, judge Stanley Matthews and editor William Grosvenor, the Liberal Republican Party organized a national convention in Cincinnati in May 1872. In Missouri and Liberal Republicans had defeated the incumbentRepublican governor and the Liberal Republicans hoped to nominate a presidential candidate who could win the support of Democrats. Though Schurz had founded the party, he was ineligible to run for President as he had been born in Germany and instead became the chairman of the convention; those who attended the convention had various motivations, though all were united in opposition to Grant.

Many delegates were attracted to the party's support for civil service reform and an end to Reconstruction. Others like Reuben Fenton hoped to recapture control of state party o